Scanners

Now Playing: The Selling of the President 2008

The excerpt below is from a piece I wrote at MSN Movies about what films of the past can teach us about the politics of the present. It’s called Lights, Camera, Election! Political lessons we learned from the movies:

Events are more carefully staged and scripted than ever, and the mainstream media cover the photo ops, “press conferences” and “debates” as if they were actually news. Even Baghdad can be just another studio back lot: McCain claimed to “walk freely” in a market there and complained Americans weren’t getting the full picture of U.S. successes in Iraq — neglecting to mention his escort of 100 soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships, conveniently off-camera.With an eye toward Kevin Costner’s “Swing Vote” (and Oliver Stone’s “W.”), I’ve rounded up a focus group of eight educational movies about politics (though many more could be added to the list): “The Candidate,” “Election,” “Primary Colors,” “Nashville,” “Bulworth,” “Wag the Dog,” “Homecoming” and (of course!) “Duck Soup.”

TIFF: ‘RFK: The Disaster Movie’

Wayne Newton and Suzanne Pleshette — er, Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore stud the all-star cast of “Bobby.”

We’re told that Emilio Estevez’s “Bobby” takes place at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, but it feels like it was originally released back around then. It’s “Earthquake” with the RFK assassination as the disaster. It’s “Airport.” It’s “The Towering Inferno.” A whole bunch of familiar actors play “colorful” characters swarming around the hotel, and their day will culminate in the death of a Kennedy. They talk about the movies — new stuff like “The Graduate,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Planet of the Apes” — but a retired doorman played by Anthony Hopkins explicitly invokes the model for “Bobby” and and its ilk: “Grand Hotel,” the 1932 picture with Greta Garbo and an all-star cast. And “Bobby” treats the assassination as an event as strangely distant from its own present-tense as “Grand Hotel” was from 1968.

Sure, the requisite modern political parallels are present, as they are in virtually every film at the Toronto Film Festival this year. On the screen, on TVs in hotel suites, over the soundtrack, are actual speeches and sound bites from Democratic senatorial candidate Robert F. Kennedy, talking about how the country has lost its way in the quagmire of Vietnam, and championing rights for minorities and low-wage workers, etc., etc., etc. (It comes as a bit of a shock to remember that politicians were once articulate and sounded like they knew the meanings of the words they were saying.)

But why make “Bobby,” which screened at the Toronto Film Festival as a “work-in-progress”? Why turn this traumatic national event into a Hollywood soap opera? The performances are fine for this kind of glitzy manufactured melodrama (“Where Were YOU When They Shot RFK?”), and on that level it’s swell, trashy fun. It’s just that the whole concept is inappropriate.

On love and work: Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc

Film critics and journalists Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc were robbed and killed at their home in Quezon City, Manila, Philippines, earlier this week. David Hudson has collected writings and reminiscences by and about the couple at The Auteurs Daily. I wasn’t familiar with either of the young writers — he, a Canadian-Filipino critic and editor; she, a Slovenian film journalist; both champions of Southeast Asian cinema. But I was moved by the belated discovery of a piece Alexis wrote to Nika in Rogue Magazine last year in which he spoke of his love of Filipino film and his love for her. It’s called “The Letter I Would Love To Read To You In Person,” and it’s a meditation on love and work and doing what one must:

Repeatable pleasures

“Barry Lyndon”: Let’s begin again…

Some great (and maybe not-so-great) movies reward repeated viewings; others you may savor only once or twice. The newly redesigned Slate.com has asked several movie people what movies they’ve seen most often. (On my own personal list: I never tire of the crackling artistic life in “Nashville,” “Chinatown,” “Citizen Kane,” “E.T.,” “North By Northwest,” “Trouble in Paradise,” “Fight Club,” “Donnie Darko,” “Double Indemnity,” “Stranger Than Paradise,” “Stop Making Sense”… Then there’s “Animal Crackers,” any Buster Keaton movie [but especially “Our Hospitality,” “Sherlock Jr.” and “Steamboat Bill Jr.”], “Waiting for Guffman,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Boogie Nights” — oh, and “Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy,” an unheralded comedy masterpiece…)

Among the choices in Slate’s “The Movies I’ve Seen the Most”:

Writer-director Paul Schrader (author of the indispensible book of film criticism, “Ozu Bresson Dreyer”): Robert Bresson’s “Pickpocket.” (Duh — he’s used the ending twice in his own movies, “American Gigolo” and “Light Sleeper.”)

The comical jocularity of humorousness

The Sunday New York Times Magazine devoted itself to comedy this weekend — and you know how funny the New York Times Magazine can be. Actually, there’s a very good article by A.O. Scott on the art of the pratfall in which he explains why some of the greatest modern comedy (from “Little Miss Sunshine” to “Borat”) is of the well-executed physical variety. (Not to be confused with what Chris Farley used to call, with an undertone of dismay, “Fat Guy Falls Down” — a desperate stunt that may elicit knee-jerk laughs, even if it’s not inherently funny.)

As part of its comedic survey, the Times Mag asked some 22 comedians, well-known and not-, to name five of their favorite “Desert Island Comedies” on DVD. I don’t like any of the lists much (while agreeing wholeheartedly with a few individual choices) — but I salute David Cross (somebody I’ve long thought is really funny) for the humor inherent in choosing “Homer and Eddie” and “Rent.”

To paraphrase an old David Steinberg routine: There are those who say… (that’s the end of my paraphrase) that to analyze comedy is anti-comedic. I could not disagree more strongly. I say if you don’t understand why you’re laughing, when you’re laughing, then you don’t appreciate the comedy and you may as well not be laughing at all, since any old reaction is probably comparably appropriate for you. You could be crying or sneezing and it’s probably the same thing. But let’s put that aside for the moment and concentrate on some lists of very personal, very funny movies.

I suppose I could choose the great movies that have made me laugh the most — the first that come to mind, such as: a Keaton (“Sherlock, Jr.” or “Steamboat Bill, Jr.”), a Fields (“It’s A Gift” or “The Bank Dick”), a Marx Bros. (“Animal Crackers” or “Duck Soup”), a Sturges (“The Lady Eve” or “Miracle of Morgan’s Creek”), and, let’s say, a classic comedy (preferably starring Cary Grant or Barbara Stanwyck or Jean Arthur, and written and/or directed by Ernst Lubitsch or Howard Hawks or Billy Wilder or Mitchell Leisen, like “Trouble in Paradise” or “Heaven Can Wait” (1943) or “Bringing Up Baby” or “His Girl Friday” or “The Major and the Minor” or “Some Like It Hot” or “Easy Living” or “Ball of Fire”…). But those are all 50-75 years old, and I haven’t even mentioned my modern-era favorites, like Luis Bunuel (“The Exterrminating Angel,” “Simon of the Desert,” “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” “The Phantom of Liberty”), Monty Python (“Life of Brian” — greatest comedy of the last half-century), Christopher Guest & ensemble (“Spinal Tap,” “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show”) or the Coen Bros. (“Barton Fink,” “The Big Lebowski”). So, I thought I’d just offer up a few relatively obscure, underappreciated or, at least, off-the-beaten-path comedies that I think are hysterically funny and invite you contribute some of your own:

“I Was Born, But…” (Yasujiro Ozu, 1932) I know it’s an acknowledged masterpiece by one of the greatest directors in movie history, but how many of you have actually seen it? Two boys, big belly laughs. Some of this material was re-worked in “Ohayo” (“Good Morning”) in 1959.

“The President’s Analyst” (Theodore J. Flicker, 1967) I love this movie — the perfect paranoid Cold War 1960s espionage satire companion to “Dr. Strangelove” and James Bond, with James Coburn in the title role. Who is writer/directorTheodore J. Ficker, anyway? Well, according to IMDb, he directed episodes of “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E., “The Andy Griffith Show,” “I Dream of Jeannie,” “Night Gallery” and “Barney Miller.”

“Taking Off” (Milos Forman, 1971) You couldn’t find a better time capsule for 1971 — which Forman has captured with his characteristically uncanny ease and naturalness. Buck Henry “stars” as a father whose daughter has run away to some sort of “hippie” musical audition — probably in the Village. The whole thing feels spontaneous and improvised — but it was written by Forman, Jean-Claude Carrierer (“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” “The Phantom of Liberty,” “Birth”), John Guare (“Atlantic City,” “Six Degrees of Separation”) and Jon Klein. One of the late, great Vincent Schiavelli’s finest moments: teaching a group of uptight, wealthy parents with missing kids how to smoke pot. Early cameos by Kathy Bates, Carly Simon and Jessica Harper, among others. (Long unavailable, this recently showed up on the Sundance Channel, which I hope means it will soon be released on DVD.)

“How to Get Ahead in Advertising”(Bruce Robinson, 1989) Robinson’s equally brilliant and demented “Withnail & I” is the official masterpiece (and object of obsessive cult veneration in the UK), but this is Richard E. Grant’s finest hour. He’s a London advertising executive so sick with self-loathing that he grows a foul-mouthed boil on his neck. How’s that for a premise?

Coldblooded” (Wallace Wolodarsky, 1995) In some ways, this is a precursor to “Dexter.” Jason Priestly is magnificently deadpan as an empty young man who is recruited to become a hit man — and turns out to be mighty good at it. Co-starring Peter Riegert, Robert Loggia (getting ready for “Lost Highway”), and Jay Kogen — who, along with writer/director Wolodarsky, wrote some of the classic early episodes of “The Simpsons.”

“Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy” (Kelly Makin, 1996) Critics were mostly bewildered or repulsed, but this movie gets funnier every time I see it (and I’ve seen it at least a dozen times). It plays GREAT on the video screen — better, I think, than any of the TV shows. A drug company speeds a new anti-depressant to the market, only to find that the insanely popular Gleemonex has a troublesome side effect: It puts people into comas of happiness. Each of the “Kids” has at least a handful of indescribably (but not inexplicably) funny moments. Including: “Cat on my head! Cat on my head!”; “I’m an elephant rider!”; “Tasty”; “How pleasing!”; and “Just… a guy.” Should be seen alongside the great documentary, “The Corporation.”

I cheated. That’s six. But, OK, I’ve left out hundreds of great titles. Your turn. And the more obscure/underappreciated the better, please.

P.S. Anybody else remember the rest of the sentence from that David Steinberg bit?

Opening Shots: Spider-Man 2

From Kris Pigna:

“Spider-Man 2” begins with an extreme close-up of a woman’s face, a dissolve from the last image of the opening credits. Against a stark white backdrop, she stares right into the camera, deeply, with the kind of eyes that are easy to fall in love with. “She looks at me every day,” Peter Parker says in voiceover. “Mary Jane Watson. Oh boy. If she only knew how I felt about her.” The camera slowly pulls out on this ideal, dreamlike image.

“But she can never know. I made a choice once to live a life of responsibility, a life she can never be a part of.” The camera pulls out far enough to reveal we’re actually looking at a billboard, a perfume advertisement Mary Jane posed for. “Who am I? I’m Spider-Man, given a job to do. And I’m Peter Parker, and I too have a job.” The camera pulls out farther, and we see Peter come into frame on his pizza-delivery moped, gazing at the billboard over his shoulder with full attention. Suddenly we hear a man calling his name, and Peter’s attention is snapped. So is the dream.